by Sam Renner
But today it’s different. Something is off. This doesn't sound normal, something is broken. Zulu is singing a new song, one that makes Lebbe nervous. He turns back around and heads to Grey, who is still sitting at The Quickstop. She takes a sip of coffee and a bite of toast then looks back down at her datapad. Lebbe raises a hand to try to get her attention, but she doesn’t see him.
He pulls the chair back out from under her table, and the legs chirp on the tile floor. Grey jumps, startled.
“Can I help you?” She asks.
“Listen,” Lebbe says.
He squints his eyes in concentration and Grey gives him an odd look.
“What?”
Lebbe puts a finger to his lips, asking for quiet. She sits up straighter in her chair.
Lebbe keeps his finger to his mouth for a moment then drops his hand. “There,” he says. “Do you hear it?”
“Hear what, Jim?”
“Something's off.”
“I'm not following.” She looks back down at her tablet.
“Just listen. Can't you hear that? One of the systems isn't functioning properly.”
Grey starts shaking her head before Lebbe has finished. “I don't hear anything, Jim.”
“You need to check that out. Something's going wrong with the Zulu. It’s water or air or something. It’s off.”
Grey starts tapping the screen on her datapad while Lebbe speaks. She pulls up an array of displays then turns her screen to Lebbe.
“Look at this,” she says. “The station takes measurements of itself every 30 minutes. This is the most recent set of readings. Everything's functioning properly.”
Lebbe looks at the dashboard, but dismisses it.
“Thirty minutes ago everything was functioning properly,” he says. “But now…”
Grey interrupts: “I'll make a note of your concern, Jim. But right now all my readings are fine.”
The old Caroline Grey is back. Lebbe had hoped their working as closely together as they have with the pilot might have changed their relationship. That maybe she would take him seriously. Clearly she's not. Not yet.
Lebbe gets up from the seat a second time. He thanks Grey for her time. You'll start taking me seriously soon enough, he thinks.
Lebbe checks his watch. Nearly 8 a.m. If he's going to meet Keith, and he needs to meet Keith, he needs to do it soon.
He crosses the main floor, dodging those travelers who are on a station like Zulu for the first time. They come out to the middle of the floor and get lost, not knowing where to head to next. They stare up into the domed roof. They'll spin in slow circles and lose minutes before they decide to grab food at The Quickstop, pick up supplies at the convenience store, or they just take a seat on the benches in the middle of the floor.
Lebbe punches the button to call the elevator to go to Zulu's control room. A moment later the bell chimes and the door slides open. He steps onto the elevator.
He's alone. It's now, when he's by himself, that he gets lost in his own thoughts. When he thinks about his daughter. Concentrates on her. Obsesses about where she is, who she might be with, whether or not she’s even alive. It’s a short ride up the Zulu’s control room, but all of that runs through Lebbe’s head like a sprinter breaking from the blocks..
He walks the hall from the elevator to the double doors that lead to the control room quickly. Keith is already sitting at his computer once Lebbe makes it inside. Rebecca is at hers too.
They both turn as Lebbe enters. Keith looks past him, like he’s waiting to see someone else come through the door. A moment later he says, “She’s not here. We haven’t seen her this morning.”
“Yeah,” Lebbe says. “I just spoke with Grey, but it’s not her I’m here to see.”
Keith turns his chair. “Oh, yeah?”
Lebbe looks to Rebecca. She’s turned her head back to the screen in front of her. He turns back to Keith. “Is there some place we can talk?”
“There’s a small break room back there.” Keith gestures with his head. “But if this is some secret thing, it’s going to look suspicious if we walk away.”
Lebbe pauses. He thinks. “Yeah, you’re right.” He grabs a chair from a desk not being used and pulls it next to Keith’s desk.
He begins: “I need some help. Nothing big or dangerous. Nothing that’s going to get you fired.”
He pauses. “Well, I don’t think it will.”
Lebbe looks to Keith. He doesn’t flinch at even the possibility that this could end in trouble. Lebbe continues.
“I have two girls. Both are still back on Earth. I’ve tried to get their mother to move off to some near-in station, but she won’t listen to me. Anyway, one of them is missing. She was involved in the protests, and I got a call the other day that she never came home. I don’t know that something bad has happened necessarily. But I want to do something to try and find her.”
“From here?” Keith asks.
“I’ve been watching the news channels, seeing if I can spot her in the crowds that they are showing. But it’s taking too long. I need to see more footage. I also need to be able to slow it down and rewind it.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“With your help, I hope. How does Zulu get that footage that we show on our screens?”
“Downloads it. Comes in a package that Zulu picks up every morning. The station unzips it, decodes it, then loads it into the different station video queues.”
Lebbe is nodding while Keith explains. “Do you think you can get me copies of that footage?”
Keith turns to his screen and starts typing instructions into his machine. A moment later he spins the screen to Lebbe. Lebbe is again looking at a dashboard that makes no sense to him.
“It’s all right there. How many copies do you need?”
Lebbe fights the urge to lean over and hug Keith.
“Just one of everything. There a spot you can put it on the servers?”
Keith thinks for a moment. “No,” he says. “Not without the system identifying it as a duplicate copy and then deleting it.”
Then, from across the room: “Rename it and bury it.”
Lebbe and Keith both turn to look at Rebecca. “What? This room is dead quiet, and it’s not like you two are whispering.” She stands and walks over to Keith’s machine. She leans in and starts punching commands into the system.
She steps back and points to the screen. “There,” she says. “Put the video files in here. Show him how to access it. It’s the easiest solution.”
Rebecca walks back to her desk, and Keith gets to work. He starts dragging the video files into a secure section of the server and gives Lebbe instructions on how to access them.
“What you’ll have,” Keith says, “is access to all the footage we get. I’m going to set up a script that automatically places a copy of the files in here. We sometimes get them early so you can watch tomorrow’s news today potentially.”
“Well, it’s actually last week’s news …,” Lebbe says.
“Sure.” Keith agrees and continues to work.
He drags the last file over then takes Lebbe’s datapad from him. He punches a few buttons and a new icon appears on the desktop.
Keith turns the pad toward Lebbe and points to the icon. “Tap that and it’ll take you directly to your spot on the server.”
Lebbe stands and looks to both Rebecca and Keith. “Thanks. Both of you. Seriously.”
Rebecca nods and says “Good luck.”
“Let us know if you need anything else,” Keith adds.
“Actually, can we keep this between us for now? Not let Grey know.”
They both nod this time.
“If she asks, I’m not going to deny anything,” Rebecca says. “But I’m not going to volunteer anything either.”
“Fair enough,” Lebbe says and turns for the door.
+++++
Lebbe walks the long hall back to the elevator. The whole time his finger is hovering over the i
con that will give him access to the videos Keith just placed on the server. He wants to watch them, all of them. He wants to get lost in them, imagining himself inside those videos, on the streets of Dallas. He wants to see the city again that he used to call home. Most of all, he wants to see his daughter.
But he doesn't tap the icon. He doesn't log in to the server. That's going to wait until he can get a moment of privacy, and that privacy only comes after a talk with McKibbon.
The elevator deposits him on Zulu’s main floor one more time and the crowd has grown just slightly since he was there last. He gets across the main floor quickly and into the elevators on the opposite side it will take him down 2 floors and into the tunnels that lead to the armory.
There he finds McKibbon sitting behind his desk, his feet are propped up on the top. His legs are crossed at the ankles and his boots could use a good shine. His uniform is wrinkled and its untucked. He’s supposed to be the lead soldier on Zulu, but you couldn't tell it by looking at him.
“Rough night, soldier?”
“Why do you ask?”
Lebbe points first to McKibbon's boots and lets his finger run all the way up to McKibbon’s shoulders. “Because you look worse for the wear.”
“Told the crew we'd have an easy day. Lots of cleaning and organizing to do after the run to get the rogue ship. We all look a little sloppy.”
Lebbe nods while McKibbon talks. “Hey,” he says after McKibbon finishes, “last time I was down here you had some cigarettes you’d rolled…”
McKibbon sits up and pulls open a drawer. He doesn’t let Lebbe finish. “So, that was you,” he says and pulls a handful of hand-rolled cigarettes from the drawer and drops them onto the top of the desk. They scatter, a few of them rolling to the floor.
“That was me.”
“Take as many as you want. This is Wednesday, right?”
Lebbe taps the screen on his datapad to wake it to life. He looks at the date in the upper corner.
“Yeah, Wednesday.”
“Then I’ve got more tobacco and papers coming in a couple of days.”
“In that case, you mind if I get some tobacco and papers and roll my own?”
McKibbon goes back into the drawer and pulls out a canvas pouch of tobacco and lays it next to the cigarettes already on his desk. He goes in for rolling papers next.
“Don’t like my handiwork?” he asks.
“They’re a little thin for my taste.”
“Suit yourself. Just make sure you smoke them someplace where Grey can’t see you.”
Lebbe reaches into the pouch and grabs a thick pinch of tobacco and lays it in a neat line inside the paper. He rolls it tight, seals the edge and then repeats the process. “Already taken care of,” he says while he works.
He puts both of the fresh smokes into the chest pocket on his shirt then looks down at the desktop and grabs two of McKibbon’s cigarettes for good measure.
“That going to do it?” McKibbon asks through a smile.
“Yeah,” Lebbe says. “I think so.” He turns for the door.
“Glad to have helped,” McKibbon says as Lebbe leaves.
+++++
Lebbe is back on Zulu’s main floor and headed toward The Quickstop. He settles up to the counter, standing not sitting.
Frank’s youngest daughter is at the other end helping a customer, and Lebbe puts up a finger to get her attention when she turns his direction. She waves to acknowledge she saw him and works her way down the counter, a carafe of hot coffee in one hand.
“Good morning, Lebbe. What can I get for you?”
“Just a cup of coffee to go, if that’s OK.”
“Easy for me.” She reaches under the counter and pulls out a paper cup and a cardboard sleeve.
Lebbe turns his attention to the screens hanging above his head. They are playing news again. It’s more about the protests that are getting overheated. People fighting, but not in Dallas this time. Now it’s happening near Kansas City. Still, he looks for Sara. Maybe she followed the protests. He’d almost like it if she did. He’d like to see the passion in her. He’d be mad, of course. She’s scared her mom. She’s scared him. But at least she was trying to do something, working for a greater good.
The lid pops onto his coffee and Frank’s daughter slides it across the counter. “Here you go.”
Lebbe reaches into his pocket to pay.
“No,” she says. “It’s just a cup of coffee. Don’t worry about it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She smiles. “This time.”
Lebbe nods his thanks and grabs the cup and a handful of sugar packets then heads to the door that leads him to the Zulu’s empty middle.
+++++
This part of Zulu still feels new and unfamiliar. Lebbe has only been down here once before, and seeing the expanse of the place was still shocking.
Zulu never fulfilled its expected potential because humanity never got curious enough to allow it. Built as a way station between the familiar of our galaxy and the unknown of everything beyond, Zulu was supposed to be a place that crackled with the excitement of possibility. But those first explorers who went out into the deep black, as the people who call Zulu home had labeled it, didn’t come back with the right kinds of stories. Instead of potential, they talked about problems. Instead of returning excited, they returned with tales of unexplainable phenomenon.
Intergalactic insanity. That’s how most people explained these stories. Those brave enough to throttle into the unknown came back scarred and changed and were then dismissed when they tried to tell someone about their experience, everyone chalking their ranting and raving up as a side effect of pushing out too far, testing the limits of what our minds and bodies can handle.
Or, worse, there were the whispers that these folks had been driven looney by not just the intergalactic isolation but an addiction to Azure that scrambled their minds and created memories of things that weren’t there. Still, even with the ability to wave a hand and dismiss these stories as the products of minds that had flipped, no one came out to Zulu. Not like they’d been expected to anyway.
This part of space and everything farther out was left to the miners and freelance captains looking to take advantage of everyone else’s fears, their eyes and better senses clouded by the promise of riches.
So now these outer rings of Zulu sit open and empty. Lebbe’s steps echo as he walks across the wide expanse, and he feels a little bit conspicuous. He knows there is no one here to watch him, most people don't even know these places exist. But still, this space is too empty, and he is too much of a dark spot on a clean, white sheet. So he heads to the wall and tries to find the entrance to the smaller halls and rooms he discovered a few days earlier.
He has given some thought as to what these rooms are. When he first found them their purpose seemed a bit like a mystery, but now he realizes these were probably offices, or they were meant to be.
If Zulu ever got as full as everyone expected, all of that material needed to keep the ships coming out this far flying would need people to move it. Those people would need places to go when they weren’t moving that material. That's what these small rooms were. Lebbe pushes open the unmarked door in the wall (unmarked probably because the construction teams never got to labeling them) and finds his way into the brightly lit hall. He quickly finds the office he wants to use and slides his back down the wall and sits on the floor. He pulls a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and a matchbook that he’d gotten from Frank at The Quickstop a few days earlier. He lights his first cigarette and taps the video icon on the home screen of his data pad. The first video begins to play.
Lebbe studies everything that isn't the focus. He’s not concerned with the talking heads or the actual news they are reporting on. He’s looking at the things going on in the background. He’s looking at the people and the faces and the commotion happening there.
One cigarette quickly becomes two. Two hours quickly become three. Lebbe
is lost in the videos. Zulu is gone; he’s walking the streets of Dallas, he’s a cop back on the beat. He no longer hears the station’s hum or sees its walls. He’s not breathing its recycled air. All of that is replaced by the sounds of shouting and protests, by the stink of bodies that have spent too many days outside in the December heat, by a breeze that smells like the promise of an afternoon storm.
He is physically passing each of these people whose faces he sees on his screen. He’s studying them, looking them over while trying to figure out “Is that my daughter?”
